Updates

This update covers what will presumably be the largest update this site will ever see — its first. It has been 12 years since the Guide’s predecessor, How to Do Baseball Research, was published, so calling this an “update” seems almost facetious.

But it is an update, just as the previous book was an update of 1987’s Baseball Research Handbook. So here is a brief summary of the changes you can expect to see. This update lists six new articles, 12 articles revised or expanded from previous versions, and 10 articles removed.

New articles

These articles did not appear in the previous book at all, and are seen here for the first time. Many refer to resources that did not exist (or barely existed) a decade ago.

• Using SABR – advice on how to get the most out of your membership, and how to tap into the expertise of other members.
• List of statistical databases and websites – these sites and databases change frequently, and continue to grow more valuable.
• List of online newspapers – there has been major growth in scanned online newspaper collections since How To.
• List of SABR committee resources – a guide to SABR’s online resources, most of which are 7 years old or younger.
• Researching the business of baseball – an introduction to business-oriented research not present in the previous guide.
• Researching umpires – how to find information specific to umpires, much of which is online (and was not online in 2000).
• Using the SABR/Baseball-Reference Encyclopedia – a guide to using SABR’s wiki-based encyclopedia with Baseball-Reference.com

Updated, revisied, and expanded

Most of the articles on the site are updates or expansions of articles that appeared in the book (and although this site does not use bylines, many of these updates were done by the original authors). Predecessors and current versions are:

• Ten keys to good research – updated (the 2000 version was an update of “Eight keys to good research” from the 1987 book).
• Using libraries – updated from “Introduction to Libraries and Archives”.
• Interviewing techniques and guidelines – updated and expanded from “Oral History Research”.
• Finding and using images and List of sources for images – updated from “Finding and Using Pictures”
• Researching people and biographical data – updated from “Doing Biographical Research”
• List of baseball print periodicals and List of baseball reference books – follow on “Checklist of Printed Sources”
• Researching women in baseball – updated from “Research on Women in Baseball”
• Researching baseball records – updated.
• Researching the Negro Leagues – updated.

Articles removed

Some of the articles in How to Do Baseball Research are not here at all. These are not necessarily gone forever – some may return later, once they have been updated. They are:

• “Well, You’ll Want To…”
• “Sabermetrics”
• “Writing for the Web”
• “Researching the Nineteenth Century”
• “Checking the Facts”
• “Researching Baseball Photographs”
• “Writing for SABR”
• “Research on Ballparks”
• “Preparing the Manuscript for Publication”
• “U.K./Europe: Research and Resources”
• “Traveling Essentials”